Hey, Frequent Flyer point experts...?

[5ofus]

I was reading an article in the paper yesterday and was stunned to find that the US domestic carriers don't add on ridiculous fees for 'fuel surcharges' and other taxes when you use FF points for flights with them. I was under the impression you'd get slugged like you do here with Qantas.

I always knew the extra charges in flying to and from the US with our points were going to be big, but they are getting out of hand now; $1679.48 quoted on just TWO seats and there are five of us!

It's made me rethink our big trip in 2015 and what we will use our points for. We have a large number of points and our original plan was to use them for the return flight to the US, but now I'm thinking we're better off buying cheap fares with whatever carrier we can and using our points for our domestic flights in the US. I just did a quote on the Qantas site and flying LA-MCO return will cost us only $25 (for the five of us) flying AA! We'll have to pay for luggage on top of this, but GEEZ!!! We already have more than enough points to do this, and I'd love to visit maybe SF or Washington as well which will be easier to do if we go this route.

So, a question for all you FF experts (Karen?), are we missing some fees, or is that REALLY it would cost us? Another question; is it worth flying First Class rather than Economy for the domestic flight, or should we save the points for the next trip?

 

[australiankaren]

ahhhhhh, the FF point game
gota love it

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/index.php

here's a great forum site (my secret weapon) to pick up tips, hints and other stuff.

yep, it is cheaper to use points in the USA then trans-pacific..

with my LAX-MCO Award first class flight with delta in september, I "paid" 45,000 delta points and only $10 taxes pp...

so my advice is buy the cheapest flights avail syd-lax and then use your points on the code share of your point provider to get you around the USA.

taxes from Australia are criminal.Downright piracy

oh and there are ways to extend your points when you go to 3 or more places...you just need to learn how to "shop" for award flights and get max bang for you point dollar..

re first vs econ flights, it depends on the time of year etc you want to travel....alot of award sites now have low/med/high award charts you can use. Thats how i found my low award rate for my 1st class lax-mco flights...
so i paid 45,000 instead of 80,000 just because i picked the days with low award flights, and stopovers.I dont care taking an extra 2 hrs to get there when i'm in first class

 

[Andona]

I agree that the Qantas taxes are just getting ridiculous. I also think the availability of Classic Award seats has deteriorated a LOT in the last few years (at least over school holiday periods which is when we've had to fly)

If you have internal flights in the USA or (elsewhere) and you can get good value using your points on those it's a great alternative but our problem is we are road trip people - we don't tend to have many internal flights.

Lately I've started looking into Any Seat awards and Points + Pay - you don't get anywhere near the value for your points as you do with a Classic Award but you do have a lot more flexibility for flight choices, the taxes are included in the points price and you also earn points on those flights ( mostly).

Flyertalk is a great forum, another one that has heaps of experts willing to advise is http://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/

Andona

 

[JessNewbs]

Hmmm this makes me wonder. We just booked a heap of flights with Hawaiin Airlines and Delta. Should we too be recieving frequent flyer points with either of them?

 

[australiankaren]

Hmmm this makes me wonder. We just booked a heap of flights with Hawaiin Airlines and Delta. Should we too be recieving frequent flyer points with either of them?

i have now put my head between my knees....

PLEASE sign up with both airlines for all passengers, kids included. You are never too young to start collecting points.

ok, have to put head back between my knees as I am feeling a tad woozy again

 

[JessNewbs]

So I take it for example that Skymiles is what I should sign up with for Delta?

 

[australiankaren]

So I take it for example that Skymiles is what I should sign up with for Delta?

yep......and if you shop online you can get points using their site.

but just concentrate on signing the WHOLE family up....cause you can then transfer points to each other.

if you are flying syd-lax you will earn around 15,000 points each
you get one point per mile.

a usa domestic flight from lax-mco can be as little as 25,000 miles....so please for the sake of my sanity, please sign up and then make sure you see if they attach the skymiles # to your reservation.
if not, deta assist on twitter is your friend.

 

[JessNewbs]

Thanks so much, will sign up now. Looks like I will have to find a way to attach the points to my new accounts though because it's telling me to print a card and scan it when I book (which I have already done).

The travel agent mentioned NOTHING!

 

[australiankaren]

Thanks so much, will sign up now. Looks like I will have to find a way to attach the points to my new accounts though because it's telling me to print a card and scan it when I book (which I have already done).

The travel agent mentioned NOTHING!

your TA is an idiot....ok, maybe not an idiot, but close to an idiot...maybe just an ID.shhheeesssshhh..

so if all your flights are delta, you may also want to consider a 30 day lounge pass for your internal flights. Its $90, but allows you, your DH plus kids to hide in the skyclub before your flights (except from sydney)....its a life saver for us, I get the DH settled in a comfy chair, beer in hand with snacks watching tv before the flight...no tantrums

here to help

 

[5ofus]

i have now put my head between my knees....

PLEASE sign up with both airlines for all passengers, kids included. You are never too young to start collecting points.

ok, have to put head back between my knees as I am feeling a tad woozy again

So what you're saying Karen is that nobody should sign up for FF, least of all children

Calm down, I'm sure at this rate every Oz and NZ DISer will be a member of every FF program known to man by the end of the year. Then we can all have a gigantic meetup in WDW using our collective points to get us all there

(BTW thanks for the advice on domestic US flights I will have to do more research into the different costs of award flights)

 

[Kangarucci]

Flight Centre?!!

 

[australiankaren]

So what you're saying Karen is that nobody should sign up for FF, least of all children

Calm down, I'm sure at this rate every Oz and NZ DISer will be a member of every FF program known to man by the end of the year. Then we can all have a gigantic meetup in WDW using our collective points to get us all there

(BTW thanks for the advice on domestic US flights I will have to do more research into the different costs of award flights)

you people do my head in

and I'm totally there re the ozmeet using nothing to get there but our cunning plans and stunning good looks....

I do love FREE......and FF points when done the right way can make an awesome trip the winningest ever

 

[australiankaren]

Flight Centre?!!

Oh GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOOO..

ok, head is back between the knees....feeling faint.....oops there I go

 

[australiankaren]

for more detailed FF info, this guy is my hero...

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/

 

[JessNewbs]

Thanks for all your help!!!

 

[Andona]

Calm down, I'm sure at this rate every Oz and NZ DISer will be a member of every FF program known to man by the end of the year. Then we can all have a gigantic meetup in WDW using our collective points to get us all there

Oh wouldn't that be luverly!!

And for all those award programs - Love keeping track of my points with awardwallet.com ( and their app while out and about) It's not just the Airline Awards memberships it the hotel ones too! When you travel in the USA a lot it really is worth signing up with them all - just love those hotel chains...

Andona

 

[Kangarucci]

Oh GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOOO..

ok, head is back between the knees....feeling faint.....oops there I go

I meant was the TA from FC as they are worse than useless!

 

[battymum]

Just to add, ia signed up my whole family to QFF last year before our trip (use woolworths rewards for no joining fee). You can then transfer the points once per year to a single account (mine). Anyway we hadn't collected points any other way and it was enough to save about $750 off our Japan flights using points plus pay! Winning!!

 

[JessNewbs]

Flight Centre?!!

Yep sure was, I guess I shouldn't ask how did you know then?

I will def. look into that Lounge too that sounds too good to pass up, $90 for all of us? Could help out a lot since we have eight flights in total!

Apparently all of the FF points are sorted but I will need to double check them of course and then I need to work out how to choose seats for all of our Hawaiian flights since we booked with flight centre!

 

[alicia1506]

we signed up for virgin ff points before our last trip, and we earnt approx 17000 points for our bne-lax flights... which i think is enough to get us from bne to maybe cairns, domestically. we cant combine our points, and we don't belong to any other points based programs for hotels or anything else...

thinking that maybe for our trip next year we should book delta as they codeshare with VA and could earn some extra ff points there.

we tend to stay onsite for disney/universal/wdw so wouldn't be eligible for any points usage there, and in the past we've used southwest, who won't allow us to join their ff points program as we're not usa citizens